


The Ghost At The Feast

by redfiona



Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Gen, off-screen violence, reference to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24255997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: Look how far little Punk's come / I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers.Raven and Punk have very different views on what Punk needs to be a successful champion.
Kudos: 2





	The Ghost At The Feast

**Author's Note:**

> Set mid-2008. Takes TNA and WWE as canon and ignores a large chunk of ROH.

Punk could tell someone was watching him. It wasn't just the cameras, although they were bad enough, or the way that everyone backstage always watched everyone else, like sharks waiting for blood. That had only got worse since he'd won the belt, and it would stay that way as long as he held it. But what he could feel was different to that.

Every time he looked to see who was watching, there was nobody there. He'd chalk it up to paranoia, however justified, if he didn't trust his senses as much as he did. If he thought someone was watching, they definitely were.

He reached the locker room, the champion's locker room thank you very much, every inch of solitary space earned. He was startled to find someone else in there.

"My, my, my, look how far little Punk's come." He doesn't ask how Raven got in here, because it's what Raven would want him to do. It would give Raven a chance to play the faux-philosophic mystic. However he'd got in; sweet-talked security, bought a ticket and snuck backstage, or called a friend who'd let him through, Punk knew Raven had been here some time, long enough to check that the lighting was right for his reveal. Because that was Raven, a lot of effort to make something look effortless, because no, no-one can ever be seen to care about what they were doing.

Punk planned to ignore him, not that Raven would go away, he never went away, not entirely, but it was the best option.

"What? Not even a greeting for the man who got you here?"

"I got me here." Punk shouldn't have replied. He knows it. Replying to Raven only kept him there longer.

"I started you on the road. I gave you this life. With my blood I fed your dreams."

"With *my* blood, you fed your delusions." Even to this day, Punk remembered how they suffered, him and Julio. Only half of it was Raven's stupid, crazy training methods. The other half was people attacking them for things Raven had done. Sometimes it was things Raven had done recently, but quite often it was things Raven had done years before, things they'd had nothing to do with, couldn't have had anything to do with. He decided, one time when someone had decided the correct way to hurt Raven was to dangle Punk upside down from a cage, that the reason Raven always had a cluster of followers was he needed them as human shields. That was part of the wising up process, just before they'd joined James Mitchell. He'd not been much better, but at least he'd only asked for their obedience, not their devotion.

Raven had wanted love and needed adoration. Punk wasn't willing to give him either. So now Raven asked for his attention. Punk wasn't going to give him any of that either.

Punk carried on getting changed into his ring gear. He didn't bother to turn the lights on all the way on. It wasn't like he needed to see that much to unfasten buttons and pull on his trunks and a t-shirt. His knee-pads and wrist-wraps might need the light to put on properly, but he could do them in gorilla later. He didn't think Raven would shrivel and turn to dust if he did turn the lights on, if it had been sunlight maybe, but not 60-watt electric. No, the dim light just made it easier to ignore Raven.

Punk's eyes adjusted to the half-light. Raven looked like Hell. And Punk thinks he might mean the theological concept. Raven's body was all his sins remembered - eyes bloodshot and probably jaundiced, and skin much the same. He was that pale that his skin looked luminescent.

Raven was a cautionary tale. What not to do written on every cell. Those would be the lessons Punk would take.

Raven waited for Punk to finish getting ready before he carried on. He never could bear not being the focus of the other person's attention. "You need my help."

"I don't need anything from you."

"It's different now you're the champion. They love you when you're the challenger, but watch how quickly they turn."

"You might have noticed; I don't care what anyone else thinks. Including you."

"I thought I taught you better than that. The one person you should never lie to is yourself. Of course you care what people think, you're a wrestler." There was a brief pause, for effect. "That's how it starts, the beginning of the end, you lose track of who you really are and then they come for you and destroy you. You need me to remind you what you are and where you came from."

Punk fought the urge to fidget, to fold his hand into his other palm, expecting to feel his wraps under his fingers. He knew he wouldn't, not having had the chance to put them on, but he wanted to feel them to steady himself in the here and now, where Raven didn't matter. He wanted to get ready for his fight, get his head into gear and go. "I don't need you."

"Of course you do. You're following in my footsteps. Let me help you now as I have always done."

That's when something in Punk snapped. It was Raven's tone, the patriarchal pride, as though Raven thought he'd been that one to teach Punk that everything has a price, that drink and drugs are bad and that 'look what you made me do' hurt worse than the punch it followed. "You burnt your future years ago, and the present is mine." Because Punk did remember. He remembered the pain, and the blood, and the almost obscene way Raven wanted them to be grateful for it.

There were things he learned from Raven, mostly what not to do. Having followers was useful, he learnt that, you can throw them to your enemies, and for a while, they'll be grateful for the opportunity. Treat them mean, some people lap that up, and it's easier to do that consistently then throw in a moment of kindness to keep them than to do the reverse. And some people will beg for more. So you'll give it to them.

But the important thing was not to have followers who were as good as you, because they'd see through you, see you for what you were. Punk knew what Raven was, the parts of Raven that Raven lied about to himself, because he was a hypocrite on top of everything else. Raven didn't understand what Punk was, never had done, never would and never could.

Punk turned, hoisting his belt onto his shoulder. "You are going to go back to wherever you've been hiding, and I am going to go and defend my World Heavyweight title, something you never had and will never have. I am better than you could ever have been, and it's all me. Goodbye. I will not see you again."

Punk leaves the locker room, hoping it's the last he sees of Raven.


End file.
